ECSTASY users are deliberately dicing with death for the highs the drug gives them, new research has suggested.

ECSTASY users are deliberately dicing with death for the highs the drug gives them, new research has suggested.

Experts from Liverpool John Moores University and Edge Hill College in Ormskirk questioned 328 ecstasy users about the effects of the drug.

They found longer-term users tended to rate the drug effects less positively than those who were relatively new to the drug - indicating the highs diminish with long-term use.

But the majority of long-term users still felt sufficiently positive about the uplifting effects of the drug to continue using it.

The researchers suggest that individuals tend to weigh up the pros and cons of the drug.

They say that an increased understanding of this weighingup process will have implications for health education and intervention initiatives.

Dr Philip Murphy, senior lecturer in psychology at Edge Hill, said: "It is likely that some ecstasy users come to prefer the person they are and the world they experience under the influence of the drug.

"This may be seen as a form of psychological dependence on ecstasy, even though they are not physically addicted to it."

A separate study by Cathy Montgomery, Michelle Waring, John Fisk and Russell Newcombe of Liverpool JMU, examined ecstasy effects on the brain.

Users were compared with non-users in a test which found users attained lower scores on all measures, supporting evidence that ecstasy impairs normal brain functioning